Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted its second-highest monthly revenue totaling NT$206.03 billion (US$6.57 billion) for last month on constant robust demand for its 3-nanometer chips used in iPhones, boding well as a sign that the chipmaker would hit its quarterly revenue target.
Revenue last month retreated to an annual contraction of 7.5 percent to NT$206.03 billion, compared with NT$222.71 billion. That represented a monthly decline of 15.3 percent from NT$243.2 billion in October, when its monthly revenue climbed to an all-time high.
In the first two months of this quarter, TSMC accumulated a combined NT$449.23 billion in revenue, achieving about 76 percent of the lower end of the chipmaker’s revenue guidance of US$18.8 billion. TSMC estimated in October that revenue this quarter would expand about 11 percent sequentially.
Photo: Reuters, Ann Wang
The Hsinchu-based company at the time attributed the revenue growth to strong demand for its 3-nanometer and 5-nanometer technology used to make smartphones and artificial intelligence (AI) chips, providing a cushion to weakness in chips used in other applications due to a longer-than-expected inventory correction cycle.
TSMC is keeping a high utilization of about 90 percent for its 3-nanometer technology equipment during the current quarter, and the figure is to be elevated to about 95 percent in the first half of next year and rise even higher in the second half, an International Data Corp’s (IDC) projection on Thursday showed.
TSMC is benefiting from the rollout of new flagship smartphone processors by customers such as MediaTek Inc (聯發科), Qualcomm Inc, Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), who are to join Apple in adopting TSMC’s 3-nanometer chips during the second half of next year, IDC senior research manager Galen Zeng (曾冠緯) said.
Apple is to go one step further by using TSMC’s enhanced version of 3-nanometer technology for its newest A18 processor next year, Zeng said.
With a broader customer base, TSMC expects 3-nanometer chips to contribute a greater revenue share next year, compared with about 5 percent this year, the first year it ramped up production of the foundry industry’s most advanced process technology.
TSMC also plans to maintain a high equipment utilization rate for its 4-nanometer and 5-nanometer technologies for the entirety of next year at more than 80 percent, given the lofty demand for AI processors and AI accelerators, Zeng said.
To satiate customers’ strong appetite for AI chips, primarily from Nvidia Corp, TSMC is planning to more than double its capacity for advanced packaging technology, or chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) technology to solve its supply deficiency.
TSMC still faces a 20 percent supply gap to fill, Zeng said, adding that the supply constraints are to ease in the second half of next year, when TSMC is to complete its CoWoS capacity expansion.
TSMC’s CoWoS capacity is to surge about 130 percent to 32,000 wafers per month by the end of next year, up from 14,000, Zeng estimated.
That was an upgrade from an earlier estimate three months prior of 28,000 wafers, due to faster equipment acquisitions, he said.
The global semiconductor market is to resume annual growth of 20.2 percent next year to US$633 billion, up from US$527 billion this year, attributable to growing demand for AI-related chips, vehicle chips and a recovery of memory chips, IDC predicted.
This year would be a tough year, with the market size set to shrink 12 percent annually, the researcher forecast.
SECOND-RATE: Models distilled from US products do not perform the same as the original and undo measures that ensure the systems are neutral, the US’ cable said The US Department of State has ordered a global push to bring attention to what it said are widespread efforts by Chinese companies, including artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索), to steal intellectual property from US AI labs, according to a diplomatic cable. The cable, dated Friday and sent to diplomatic and consular posts around the world, instructs diplomatic staff to speak to their foreign counterparts about “concerns over adversaries’ extraction and distillation of US AI models.” Distillation is the process of training smaller AI models using output from larger, more expensive ones to lower the costs of training a powerful new
Shares of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) have repeatedly hit new highs, but an equity analyst said the stock’s valuation remains within a reasonable range and any pullback would likely be technical. The contract chipmaker’s historical price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio has ranged between 20 and 30, Cathay Futures Consultant Co (國泰證期) analyst Tsai Ming-han (蔡明翰) told Central News Agency. With market consensus projecting that TSMC would post earnings per share of about NT$100 (US$3.17) this year, supported by strong global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) applications, and the stock currently trading at a P/E ratio of below 25, Tsai said the valuation
The artificial intelligence (AI) boom has triggered a seismic reshuffling of global equity markets, with Taiwan and South Korea muscling past European nations one by one. With its stock market now valued at nearly US$4.3 trillion, Taiwan surpassed the UK, Europe’s biggest market, earlier this month, data compiled by Bloomberg showed. South Korea is about US$140 billion away from doing the same. The tech-heavy Asian markets have shot past Germany and France in the past seven months. The shift is largely down to massive gains in shares of three companies that provide essential hardware for AI: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電),
The US Department of Commerce last week ordered multiple chip equipment companies to halt shipments of certain tools to China’s second-largest chipmaker, Hua Hong Semiconductor Ltd (華虹半導體), its latest action to slow the country’s development of advanced chips, two people familiar with the matter said. The department sent letters to at least a handful of companies informing them of restrictions on tools and other materials destined for two Hua Hong facilities US officials believe make China’s most sophisticated chips, the people said. Top US chip equipment companies Lam Research Corp, Applied Materials Inc and KLA Corp, each of which has significant
RSS